At times in Christian thought, the priorities of pure doctrine and passionate mission have been perceived as opposites on a spectrum where emphasis on one results in neglect of the other, but without one, the other is deficient and doomed to crumble. Mission without doctrine is like a body without a skeleton, but apart from mission, doctrine is like dry bones in a museum. A Lutheran Reformission maintains a dual emphasis, resulting in doctrinal missions as well as missional doctrine.

Monday, January 26, 2015

For this week's newspapers, I answered a question about whether we build belief in Jesus on the Bible's reliability or rely on the Bible because of Jesus Resurrection:

Q: For someone exploring the
authenticity of Christianity, what is the best way to proceed when having
doubts about the Bible’s reliability as a book?

This reveals what is perhaps a
disadvantage we North American Christians have in understanding the Christian
Scriptures: that we approach them as a
single book.

Because we lack the connection to the
history and the original languages that Christians in other parts of the world,
such as Greek-speaking Christians or Middle Eastern Christians, our intuitive
approach to the Bible is often to look at the Bible as a single volume, but in
reality, it is composed of 66 books written by 40 or more authors over the
course of over 15 centuries.

When we hear a preacher or a
Christian proclaiming, “The Bible is God’s Word” or “The Bible is without
error”, it’s like skipping to the answer of a complex math problem without
showing the work it took to get there.
While the Bible-honoring preacher might be correct, simply stating this
to be true is not, and should not, be adequately satisfying to a person who
does not yet trust Jesus or believe the Bible to be reliable.

If we narrow the question to simply
determining whether it is reasonable to believe the claims of Christianity, we
can start by looking only at the events of the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Everything of Christianity’s authenticity
relies on a single event from these historical records—the Resurrection of
Jesus.

Jesus Himself set this event as the
criterion by which to trust in His claims or to write Him off as a fraud or
lunatic when He responded to challenges to His authority saying, “Destroy this
temple [referring to His body], and in three days I will raise it up
again.” So, the first step is to examine
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John’s historical accounts in light of their number
(how many copies we have available to us) and their accuracy (how old and how
similar the available copies are).

Upon recognizing that the Gospels we
know are identical or nearly-identical to the original editions written by the
authors, we can examine them in light of known history from other sources, from
which we will find that, while some names and events have no other
confirmation, many of them, such as Pontius Pilate, Herod, and Caesar Augustus
did exist at the time and place specified.

It also comes to light that Roman historians report within decades of the life
of Christ that Christians were worshiping Jesus as God and claiming that He
was raised from the dead, indicating that this was not a later exaggeration of
the story. When examined in the light of
motives and typical human behavior, it becomes additionally evident that the
only reason the Disciples would continue to defend the story of the
Resurrection in the face of harassment, torture, and death is if they sincerely
believed they witnessed it.

Combining all these elements, it
becomes apparent that it is more reasonable to believe the Resurrection
occurred than that it did not. From that
foundation, the rest of the Bible can then be defended. The Old Testament can be found reliable,
because Jesus, who proved His authority by rising from the dead, endorsed its
books during His ministry.

Peter, John, and the other
eyewitnesses who wrote much of the New Testament can be relied upon because
they were commissioned by Jesus before He ascended into heaven, and wrote their
letters as explanations to new communities of Christians about what Jesus
taught and how that applies to their circumstances. And Paul, who wrote the remaining books of
the New Testament, was examined by the Apostles, as explained in the books of
Acts and Galatians, and found to be faithfully preaching the same message which
Jesus had delivered to them.

Finally, with regard to other
challenges to Biblical records of events, such as the time and method of
creation, the Resurrection answers these as well, because if Jesus was
genuinely raised from the dead, and an all-powerful Father in Heaven exists, as
He describes, then in light of the seemingly-impossible event of the
Resurrection, the improbability of these remaining event becomes insignificant
in comparison.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

My article from this week's newspapers answers a question about how Dinosaurs fit into the Biblical Creation Story:

Q: How is it possible to reconcile
the creation events described in the book of Genesis with the existence of
dinosaurs?

For those who disregard the events of
Genesis as mere myth, this problem can be solved simply by adopting whatever
theory about dinosaur life is current in the scientific community. However, finding the place where dinosaurs
fit into a literal reading of Genesis has been a task that requires more
intense examination and which has resulted in diverse conclusions across the
spectrum of Biblical scholars and scientists who are convinced of the
authenticity of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Some of the attempts are difficult to
consider seriously as they border on science fiction. These include ideas such as a previous
creation that had fallen victim to disrepair or destruction prior to the events
described in Genesis and an earth that was created to include evidence of
history which never actually happened.
Even less credible attempts have suggested that dinosaur fossils are a
hoax or even a demonic plant to lead people into doubt.

More credible attempts at proposing
solutions to this question have taken into account how limited our knowledge of
dinosaur life really is, and how little the Bible actually says about that
period of history. For example, all we know about most dinosaurs is their
bones, which have been preserved as fossils, or perhaps an occasional fossilized
footprint. Many details which we think
we know about dinosaurs, though, are merely speculation or educated guesses,
including such details as their behavior and the appearance of their skin or
other soft tissues, which have long since decomposed.

We also know that Genesis only
devotes two chapters to the creation event itself and 11 chapters to the world,
as it existed prior to Abraham, but within these chapters exist several clues
that might provide insight into the place of dinosaurs in the Biblical version
of creation:

Probably the most important of these
details is a massive flood in which all life on earth is destroyed, except for
8 people and 2 or 7 specimens of each animal kind, and there are two
significant changes that accompany this event.
The first of these is a decrease in human life span. In the pre-flood genealogies, the individuals
named had lives that spanned six to well over nine centuries. Following the flood, the sort of life spans
we are familiar with today are seen.

The second of these changes relates
to a “firmament” mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis, which appears to be
some sort of water canopy in the earth’s atmosphere—something we do not see in
existence in our present-day world. It
has been proposed that such a feature could relate to dramatic atmospheric
differences compared to what we know today, and may contribute to the
differences seen in life spans in the pre-flood and post-flood worlds.

Taking both of these things into
account, and knowing that some species of animals grow throughout their life
span, and not only until a certain point of maturity, it has been proposed that
species who today live to a certain age and grow to a certain size could grow
to exponentially larger sizes if allowed to live to ten times their current
life span, resulting in a creature with a skeleton of the size and construction
we presently find in dinosaur fossils.

However one concludes about
dinosaurs, though, the Resurrection is the event upon which Christianity stands
or falls, because Jesus predicted His resurrection as the evidence that what He
proclaimed was true. If He rose and
still lives, then all of His teachings are to believed, including the fact that
He took Genesis as an accurate and reliable account of human origins.

When the limitations of the evidence
at hand – both regarding our knowledge of dinosaurs and the few literary
details given about the creation event and the pre-flood world – we recognize
that there is limitless potential for yet-undiscovered evidence to fill in the
gaps in such a way that confirms both the existence of dinosaur life and a
literal creation as described in Genesis.

Lutheranism is more than a cultural identity or a denominational label. In fact, this cultural and institutional baggage may be the primary obstacle in Lutheranism’s path.

To be a Lutheran is not dependent on a code of behavior or a set of common customs. Instead, to be a Lutheran is to receive Jesus in His Word, Body, and Blood for the forgiveness of sins in the Divine Service; and to be bearers of this pure Truth to a broken world corrupted with sin, death, and every lie of the devil and man’s own sinful heart.

While the false and misleading ideas of human religious invention are appealing to sin-blinded minds, they fail when exposed to the realities of life. It is tragic when souls are led to confusion and despair because of the false religious ideas with which they are surrounded. The Biblical doctrine taught by the Apostles and restored at the Reformation holds answers which are relevant regardless of time or place and offers assurance of forgiven sins and eternal life who all who believe its message.

I am a husband, a father, the pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Burt, IA, and track chaplain at Algona Raceway.